Just Shoot Me (Cowboy Way, #1) (8 page)

“
Time for wardrobe, Tomcat,” she
said evenly.

Dean pulled his arm from her grasp, and
clenched his fists. “My fucking name is Dean, and I want to talk to
Tina first!” he shouted. Texas Tomcat. What a stupid name, Dean
thought. And he was the pussy who was going to have his face
attached to that stupid name.

The woman’s brown eyes narrowed, and anger
sparked there. “Don’t you curse at me, mister,” she said with a
haughty tilt of her chin similar to Paulo’s. “They are getting the
equipment set up, and expect you to be ready when they are. Time is
money here, and if you don’t want your paycheck docked, you’ll
cooperate.” A thousand dollars an hour. Dean kept repeating that to
himself since they arrived there this morning. Since he agreed to
this insanity.

“
Fine,” Dean replied, storming past
her to go stand beside the clothing rack at the back wall. When the
woman got there she yanked a pink and green shirt with pearl
buttons off the rack, and a pair of creased dark blue jeans. She
handed the hangers to him, then knelt to dig in a box under the
rack. Her black leather pants creaked as she stood back up to hand
him a rhinestone-studded black leather belt. Dean stared at the
sparkly, girly belt like it was made of snakeskin and the snake was
still in residence.

“
I’m not wearing that,” he said
firmly. He had to draw the line somewhere, or he had a feeling this
woman might have him looking as prissy as Paulo.

“
Yes, you are,” she said folding
her arms over her chest.

“
No, I’m not. That’s a woman’s
belt.”

The woman huffed out a breath. “It will work.
I left the other ones at home.”

“
That’s your problem,” Dean replied
smugly.

“
Just take the damned belt,” she
said with frustration. When he didn’t move, she sat back on the
floor and glared up at him. “Are you always this
difficult?”

Dean heard a hoot from behind him, and spun
around. “No most of the time he’s much worse. This is his best
behavior, Belinda. Be thankful,” Cord said with a smile for the
woman, and a sideways glare at him. “C’mon man, just take the
damned belt.” Cord took the belt from Belinda and laid it over the
clothes on his arm.

“
What the hell are you doing in
here? You’re supposed to be working,” Dean reminded gruffly. It
sure didn’t take his brother long to shuck off the responsibilities
Dean had given him this morning. So much for him doing what Dean
asked him to do, while he did this. Not only had Jeremy been in
here this morning bugging the crap out of all of them, now Cord was
doing the same.

“
And so are you,” Cord reprimanded.
“Sounds like the only thing you’re working at is being an abrasive
asshole. Oh yeah, that’s not work for you. It comes
naturally.”

“
Pssht—this isn’t work either. But
it is frustrating as hell.” Dean shoved a hand through his hair,
and heard dual gasps from Belinda and Paulo. He patted the top of
his hair then let his hand fall to his side.

Paulo grabbed the can of hairspray and a pick
off of the coffee table and headed his way with a determined look
on his face. Dean turned and almost ran down the hallway toward the
bathroom. He felt Paulo hot on his heels, but he shut the bathroom
door in his face and locked it for good measure. Dean needed some
breathing room for a minute to get his head right.

He’d told his brother this wasn’t work, and
compared to being a rancher it wasn’t. But Dean was fast seeing
that the frustration factor alone made it worth every penny of the
money they were paying him to do it. Even a thousand bucks an hour
almost didn’t seem like enough. All those people buzzing around him
like he was some kind of project they had to complete for a grade
made him nervous.

Dean laid the clothes on the vanity, and
pulled the jeans off the hanger then unbelted the robe he was
wearing and let it drop to the floor. He inspected the jeans and
decided they were a little heavy on the fancy stitching on the back
pockets, but might be something he wore for special occasions. He
surely wouldn’t be working outside in them.

At least they were bootcut and not those
damned skinny leg jeans that men were wearing these days. He had no
idea how men wore those damned jeans. He’d feel like he was in a
sausage casing. One thing was for sure, the men that wore those
type of jeans like Paulo, didn’t wear cowboy boots with them. Boots
would never fit under the tight legs.

Dean put his legs in the jeans then pulled
them up. To get them buttoned he had to suck in and lean back
against the vanity. Before he zipped them he had to rearrange
things to make sure the zipper didn’t catch anything important.
God, if a man got excited in these jeans, there would definitely be
trouble, he thought, as he finally got the zipper up and looked
down at himself.

They were too tight, he decided, patting his
ass and not feeling an inch of give in the material. He ran his
thumb along the waistband and there was no room there either.
Surely, that woman Belinda had brought more than one pair. Tina had
sent a tailor out Wednesday to take his measurements, but the guy
must’ve gotten the numbers wrong. Dean shoved his undershirt into
the waistband of the jeans, put on his boots then opened the door.
He walked back down the hall to the living room of the bunkhouse.
Belinda was talking to Hope and Tina, so he just walked over
there.

“
These pants are too tight,” Dean
complained and all three women swung around to face him. He figured
they must’ve realized it too, because as a group they gasped and
put their hands to their chests. He even heard a whimper from over
by the sofa that had to come from Paulo. “I’m gonna bust out of
these if I breathe too deeply. Get me another pair,” Dean said
shortly.

Tina broke from the others to walk over and
slowly circle him, inspecting him like she would a side of beef.
That’s exactly what he felt like right then with the petite
brunette’s hot eyes on his body. Uncomfortable, Dean shifted his
weight from foot to foot.

“
They’re perfect,” she said softly,
as she stopped to face him.

Her gray eyes made it up as far as his mouth
and lingered a second, before her gaze tracked back down his
throat, moved slowly over his chest down his legs to his toes.
“Perfect,” she repeated. On the return trip up his body, her eyes
lingered for a moment at his crotch. That look he’d seen in her
eyes the other day when she was moving the car came back. Interest.
Desire.

Dean quickly found out that he was right about
the lack of stretch in those jeans. Tina might as well have
actually touched him there considering his reaction. That thought
made him harder. “Get me another pair of damned jeans!” he demanded
as he turned away quickly before anyone noticed his
problem.

He strode back down the hallway, and slammed
the bathroom door behind him. Leaning back against it, he shut his
eyes. He’d had a fucking hard on since he met that woman. Her
staring at him like that when he hadn’t had sex in three fucking
years wasn’t helping his problem. He hadn’t taken the edge off in a
long time either.

Why did his damned sex drive have to come out
of hibernation now? And why because of a woman he did nothing but
argue with? Because even though his mind might resist the idea of
being attracted to the tiny spitfire, his body was definitely
there.

Big time, he thought, looking down at the
straining zipper on the jeans.

He kept feeling her soft skin against his palm
when he took off her boots, and wondering if the rest of her
shapely body was just as warm and silky. Wondered if the tips of
her perky breasts were dusky pink or coral colored. And how they
would taste. The tip of his tongue tingled, and Dean got so hard,
he really did think he might break the zipper out of those
jeans.

And there wasn’t a damned thing he could do
about it. This photo shoot was about to go to hell in a handbasket.
Dean was about to be humiliated too. He knew someone would probably
be knocking on that door soon, expecting him to come back out
there. When he did, the whole crew was in for a surprise. Unless he
did something to fix the situation himself.

Dean unzipped the jeans, and shoved them down
his legs, grabbed the hand towel off the rack beside the sink, then
shuffled over to sit on edge of the tub. He jerked his underwear
down and fisted himself. Sitting sideways he leaned back against
the wall, straddled the tub edge and closed his eyes. He gripped
his painful erection, and stroked himself, as he pictured Tina
Montgomery using that beautiful mouth of hers on him. Dean held
back a moan, his breathing hitched, and his heart beat an unsteady
rhythm in his chest.

With each stroke, each fantasy he indulged,
the tension inside him ratcheted up. Pleasure built, his balls
tightened and he moaned, damned close to coming when the bathroom
door opened. A soft gasp followed, and his eyes flew open to see
the woman he was fantasizing about standing there, looking as
embarrassed as he felt right then.

God, he wished someone would just shoot him.
Put him out of his misery. His face felt like it was on fire as he
threw the hand towel over his lap and sat up.

“
Um, I was just coming to see what
was taking so long,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper.
She waved her hand, put it to her cheek, then shook her head and
dragged her eyes toward the toilet. “You just, ah…finish up…and
I’ll be out there,” she said without looking at him. Tina
crawfished back out of the door and pulled it shut. Dean just sat
there with his heart pounding in his ears, more embarrassed than
he’d ever been in his life.

His chin dropped to his chest, and he took
slow even breaths trying to get himself together.

How in the hell was he going to face that
woman now? Dean didn’t know, but he knew he couldn’t hang out in
the bathroom all day. His eyes slid to the wall and up to the small
window near the ceiling, gauging his odds of fitting through it.
Not good. With a heavy sigh, he stood and grabbed the hand towel
before it fell on the floor. He looked down at himself and realized
his problem had resolved itself now.

Odds were he would never have to worry about
that problem again. Every time he looked at Tina Montgomery from
now on, he’d probably shrivel up. She definitely wouldn’t be giving
him that look again. Her walking in and catching him, a
thirty-four-year-old man, jerking off like a teenager had to have
been a shocker. A teenager would have been smarter than he had
been. At least a teenager would remember to lock the damned door
first.

Dean shook his head, and situated his
underwear, then pulled the jeans up and zipped them. He tucked in
his undershirt, then grabbed the shirt off of the vanity and slid
into it. How the hell was he going to explain this and not look
like the fool he was?

There was no explaining it. But she was a
grown woman, and she knew he was divorced. Out here in the country
there wasn’t an overabundance of available women. He was a man.
With needs. But damn.

Dean felt his face heat up again, as he worked
the buttons on the shirt, and tucked it into the jeans. The sparkly
belt on the vanity mocked him. He stared it a minute, then decided
that the best thing he could do was keep his mouth shut and do as
he was told. He needed the money he made from this shoot. So maybe
he could run away to Tahiti where nobody knew about what had just
happened. The most he could hope for was that Tina Montgomery knew
how to keep her mouth shut. Dean sucked in a deep breath and let it
out slowly, then slid the belt through the belt loops on the jeans
and buckled it.

Stiffening his shoulders, Dean grabbed the
knob and opened the bathroom door. He walked down the hallway to
the living room, and saw her entourage standing in a circle on the
other side of the room talking and laughing loudly. Paulo stepped
to the side, holding his flat stomach while he laughed
uproariously. Tina was standing right in the middle of the group
holding court. Her eyes met his, a small knowing grin kicked up the
side of her mouth. The conversation stopped, and all eyes swung his
way.

The entire group grinned from ear-to-ear,
including Tina, whose grin was wider than the rest. Tina Montgomery
had told them. They were laughing at him. A feeling of betrayal
momentarily displaced his embarrassment, but then turned into full
blown anger.

If he felt like a teenager jerking off in the
bathroom, then they were acting like teenagers gossiping about it.
And it looked like Tina Montgomery was the head cheerleader. Dean
was done with this shit. And he was done with her. He had work to
do. They could enjoy their laugh, because they wouldn’t be taking
any pictures, since their model had just quit.

“
I’m outta here,” he said as he
stomped across the room past them to the door.

He flung it open, and Cord stood there looking
surprised. Dean gave him a heated glare, as he brushed past him. He
was almost to the driveway when Tina yelled behind him. Dean didn’t
stop. He needed to go for a ride. Maybe he’d just keep riding and
never come back. That’s how he felt about his life these days. It
sucked. The situation sucked. Tina called him again, and Dean
increased his pace toward the barn. As short as her legs were, he
could probably have Blaze saddled and be out of the barn before she
caught up to him.